Chess not checkers : elevate your leadership game

145 Pages·2015·0.85 MB·English

by  Miller

CHESS NOT
CHECKERS
Other books by the author:
The Heart of Leadership
The Secret of Teams
The Secret with Ken Blanchard
Great Leaders Grow with Ken Blanchard
Field Guides:
Chess Not Checkers
The Heart of Leadership
The Secret of Teams
CHESS NOT
CHECKERS
ELEVATE YOUR LEADERSHIP GAME
MARK MILLER
Berrett–Koehler Publishers, Inc. Berrett–Koehler Publishers, Inc. Berrett–Koehler Publishers, Inc.
a BK Business book a BK Business book a BK Business book
Chess Not Checkers
Copyright © 2015 by Mark Miller
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First Edition
Hardcover print edition ISBN 978-1-62656-394-0
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-395-7
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-396-4
2015-1
Production Management: Michael Bass Associates
Cover Design: Irene Morris
Chess Piece: TheChessStore.com
This book is dedicated to Truett Cathy.
It was my privilege to watch and learn from
him for almost four decades as he created
his own high performance organization.
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Contents
Introduction 1
The Decision 3
Harder Than It Looks 7
Something Has to Change 19
A Different Game 23
Game On! 33
Start Here 39
Place Your Bet 47
What’s Important? 55
Who Cares? 77
It’s Your Move 89
Game Plan 101
What’s Next? 107
Epilogue 121
Acknowledgments 123
About the Author 127
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Chess Not Checkers
Introduction
Introduction
Leading has never been easy. From our first exper-
iment trying to get our classmates to follow us or
receiving our first official assignment at work, leader-
ship has always demanded our best effort. That hasn’t
changed—but something else has: the complexity of
the problems we face and the organizations we lead
has increased exponentially.
Perhaps this complexity finds its energy in the scope
of your enterprise, or it may merely be a function of
increased volume. These are great problems to have . . .
if leaders can orchestrate an appropriate response.
Unfortunately, for many leaders, our past suc-
cesses just don’t translate. The game has literally
changed before our eyes. The methods that worked
extremely well in the past no longer have the same
effect. In many cases, the tried and true has become
the tired and tarnished.
Most of us began our leadership journey utilizing
an approach with striking similarities to the game of
checkers, a fun, highly reactionary game often played
at a frantic pace. Any strategies we employed in this
style of leadership were limited, if not rudimentary.
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